Pleasure on Pause
by ShutUpAndPull
Summary: Because I read a prompt about Rick and Kate deciding to wait until their wedding to "font" again and trying to seduce each other along the way...
1. Chapter 1

His skin had become her unintended canvas, it seemed, the vivid pink hue of the four bands that crawled down the line of his shoulder blade absorbing Kate's attention as she watched him cross the floor from their bed to the bathroom late that morning.

She always tried to keep her nails on the shorter side, for work, certainly, but also for Rick's benefit, for the very reason that found her there naked amongst the rumpled sheets with a wicked grin on her face. That was what he brought out in her, that passion, fierce and relentless. Oh, it'd always been there, and she'd known so, but no man had ever been able to draw it out the way he did, and his body carried the manifestation to prove it.

Spring showers had settled over the city and looked to be parked there for the weekend, which wasn't entirely unwelcome, as it turned out. They'd just managed to crawl free of seventy-two hours of case exhaustion, and Saturday found them in full embrace of their two well-earned days of leisure and of one another, and their only plan ahead was to have absolutely no plan at all.

Rick shuffled back into the bedroom mid-yawn, and Kate pushed up onto her elbows, the sheet exposing her breast as it shifted with her new angle. He walked around the bed, pulled aside the curtain at his window, and gazed out at the grey on the other side, her eyes tracking his every move.

"Are you going to get back in here, Castle, or stand there and spy on the neighbors some more? You know if you can see them, they can see you, too, right? There's no way they've earned that show you're giving them."

He angled back, around the lamp on the nightstand that was obstructing his view. "Missing me, are we, Detective?" He could already feel his body in its reaction to the sight of her, despite having just come down from a tremendous height-one she'd taken him to. "It's wet, sexy," he said as he climbed back into bed beside her.

The errant sheet lingered without correction, purposely, of course, his unapologetic admiration her grounds. Kate knew his words were of the morning, but they plucked her string nonetheless, and he couldn't have chosen them more deliberately. "It is," she purred in reply, the sound of falling rain at the windows inconsistent to the point of perfection. "Turn around, Castle." The command was odd, sudden, yet he obliged without question.

"I like it better when I can look at you, especially when I know you want me to."

She rolled up onto her knees and crawled towards him, closer, to investigate, as was her specialty. What she found was no longer just four lines. They had texture now, definition, a rawness that resembled art. "Does it hurt?" she asked, and a part of her selfishly hoped for the other answer, the one she shouldn't have hoped for, the one that meant he would be reminded.

Rick could feel her warm breath on his skin's wound. That was how close she sat. "It stings a little bit." He'd already studied it in the bathroom mirror, as successfully as he could, given its position, and in the quiet, he'd heard her breath all over again, her moan amidst its creation. "But I think it's hot as hell."

Kate leaned in and pressed her lips at its edge. "Guess you'll have to be on the bottom this time, so I don't make it any worse."

Rick slowly turned around to her. "I'll be anywhere you want me to be, but are you sure you're ready? It's only been-"

"You know better than to ask that," she tsk-tsked, stepping on his foolish words. And he knew damn well. "Maybe you're projecting, huh?" Her fingers began to draw upwards along his thigh as she continued her tease. "Maybe you're the one who isn't ready."

He captured her wrist without breaking eye contact. "As you were about to discover for yourself, Dick Castle and I are very eager to start all over again. No one ever said there wasn't any fun in the chase."

"Tell me you did not just say what I think you just said." He'd let it fly without even a blink, and from the look on his face, he had no idea what it was that instigated her remark. "Did you just refer to your penis as Dick Castle?"

He responded with a boastful snicker. "I just came up with that, off the top of my head, just now. I'm almost too good, sometimes, I swear." Relinquishing his hold, he pushed his fingers between hers and folded them together. "Come on, you can admit it. You're a little bit impressed."

"You mean horrified? Embarrassed? Questioning our impending marriage?"

"Don't even joke about that. There's no way in hell you're getting out of marrying me, not with just two weeks to go. Connelly would never let me hear the end of it." With a squeeze and a tug, he maneuvered her into his lap, her legs in straddle. "And I love you too much to let you go."

Kate clasped her hands around his neck, played lazily with his hair. "Is that what I feel?" she asked with a deliberate downward glance.

"Oh, he loves you, too. A lot. And he is now at your insatiable need's command." When he came for her lips, she pulled back.

"Excuse me? My _need_?"

He tried to steal a kiss a second time, again unsuccessful. "Don't be bashful about it. He's flattered. We both are."

Kate grabbed a handful of his hair in a fist and held it tightly. "Stop referring to it as a _he_ , Castle, or by any other name. Whatever you think that is-cute or charming or funny-it isn't. And there is a big difference between need and want. As an example: I need you to hear what I'm saying right now. I want you to take this," she went on before reaching down and clutching him in her other hand, "and…" The remainder of the wish she pushed into his ear in whisper.

The sound that emanated from him was both weird and wonderful. "I guess that's the difference between you and me, Beckett," he could only sputter with the purposeful slide of her fingers. "I'm big enough to own up to it. I need everything about you."

"The difference, Castle? Singular? Please, there are so many differences between you and me, I could write you a book. And you don't have to brag. I'm well aware of how big you are," she quipped with an audible smile, her innuendo utterly devoid of innuendo.

"Okay, you know what I think we should do, Detective? After we do that thing you whispered a minute ago, I mean, obviously." Kate released him, finally, and dropped back onto the bed. "I think that for the next two weeks, until you walk down the aisle to me and officially become the luckiest woman in the world, we should agree to refrain from all fun of the naked variety. I bet we find out who needs what then, and I bet you crumble long before I do."

She all but laughed in his face. "Are we wagering on this nonsense of yours? What do I get when you come begging for Pussy-Kate?" Rick's mouth fell open, quite literally. "I'm good, too, Dick Castle," she said with focused attention on her subject. "Now do you see how weird the name thing is?"

"I'm sorry. I'm definitely going to need a minute. Or five," he replied once he succeeded in locating his voice, and then he sat there, still, as he heard hers play over and over again on a loop.

"Fine, Castle, how about this? How about when I kick your ass at this, just like I did with Scrabble, you have to give up playing video games for six months." She stretched out her leg and poked him in the side with her toes. "Did you hear me?"

Though with his blank stare it appeared he wasn't listening, he heard every word. "I did, and I think it doesn't matter what your terms are because you're the one who's going to go down in flames."

With the sudden injection of excitement, he crawled to her, knelt in the space she created for him between her legs, their muscles hugging him at the hips. Her body was entirely exposed, save for the line where her arm lay draped across her belly, and the remembrance drawn delicately in black ink on her skin, the one no one else but him would ever again see, unanticipatedly served to inspire his own term for their as yet unagreed-upon agreement.

"Tell me what you're thinking about," Kate said when his fingers gifted her goosebumps but then abruptly stopped their drift.

"How about when I win, you have to get something of my choosing tattooed on your body wherever I want you to?" He equaled her certainty, her confidence in ultimate victory, and that turned her on even more than she already was. "And, I promise, it will be something beautiful and elegant, like its bearer."

She considered it for a moment, or pretended to, at least. "Okay, Castle, no video games for you or a tattoo for me." It was really all too easy. There was no way she'd ever lose. Not in the game of restraint. "Should we shake on it?"

Rick angled himself over her and dipped for her ear. "You're going to remember what's about to happen every minute of every day until you can have it again," he said in painful promise, knowing the next fourteen days of his life would be the very same.

"I need you to stop fucking talking now, Castle," Kate told him, unfazed by her own rather desperate tone.

"Need or want?" he asked smugly before he gave her both.


	2. Chapter 2

It hadn't even been two full days since their wager's clock had begun its tick, and Kate was already hungrier for Rick than she'd ever been. All those years she'd managed to stifle her want of him-one of the most intense and overwhelming of her life-but she'd had him now, often and unbridled; she knew his muscles and his bones and the power they possessed, and that knowledge was doing her in.

He'd showered before her that morning, and the scent of his wash still lingered on the humid air. It was her hands that so often bathed his skin in it as they stood beneath the hot spray together, but now, alone, by necessity and might of craving, her hands found other occupation.

Kate swiftly found her release, and in it heard the familiar sound of their interwoven breath when they'd come down together. _Incredible_ , he'd whisper. _Amazing_. And it always was, even when it wasn't. How grateful she was that he hadn't insisted they refrain from the indulgence of their own pleasure during those weeks. And how stupid she'd been for not confessing her need of everything about him, too. That was, after all, the beautiful truth of it.

It struck her only as she finished readying her hair and her face for the day ahead-a task, on many days, including that one, that felt akin to a trudge up the harshest mountain- what it was she had to do to survive it, how she had to play it, and playing would be her key. It had to be a game, one where she didn't expend energy trying to keep herself from him, but instead used it to draw Rick to her. That game she knew she could win, and that game began immediately.

With an extra pass over her black eyeliner and a toss of her loose hair, she moved through the bedroom, bare, for the closet, Rick nowhere to be seen. From the back of one of her drawers there, she pulled the two coordinated pieces out, admired them with both a scoff and a smirk. He'd bought the costume for her as a Valentine's Day joke, or so he'd said, though when she'd hesitatingly slipped it on for him by request that night, he'd done everything but laugh. It hadn't seen her body since.

"Hey, Castle, can you come in here a minute?" she called into the air of the loft before ducking back into the closet, now attired in the gift that'd always existed more for his enjoyment than hers.

"Be right there," he hollered back, and like an actor who'd just been prompted by a cue, Kate began sliding her hangers of clothes down the rack with counterfeit frustration. "Hey, what's…"

Then silence.

"Castle, do you know where my black, silk shirt is? I thought it'd come back from the dry cleaner, but I can't find it," she said without turning, but certain his eyes were all over her. "I have a meeting with the chief of detectives today and I wanted to wear it."

"Why are…? How did…? What?" Rick fumbled in fits and starts.

"My black shirt, have you seen it?" she said more firm, finally granting him a view of the entire package-or torturing him with it, as the expression on his face suggested. "Castle," she hissed with a snap of her fingers.

"You're wearing that," he said in statement rather than inquiry and with a step closer.

Kate glanced down at the weapon her body had become and returned to him. "You don't want me to?" Her tone oozed innocence, and she silently applauded herself for her performance. "I just found it in my drawer. I thought you'd get a kick out of it, being with me all day at the precinct, being the only one to know I had it on underneath my clothes." Rather heavy-handed, she knew, but too fun not to pour it on a smidge.

Rick looked into her eyes, eyes whose uncustomary smoke transformed their hazel to emerald, and when she bit at her lip, he knew. He was no Kate Beckett fool.

Oh.

"Well, you're my Wonder Woman every day, no matter what you're wearing. You know that." Pivoting on his heel, he went for the door. "Coffee's on, if you want some," he said breezily and strolled out, nearly walking straight into the doorjamb in a stupor from which he wondered if he'd ever recover.

 _I deserve a fucking medal for that_ , he thought as he wandered almost drunkenly back towards the kitchen. He'd just left the most exquisite embodiment of woman, perfectly undressed, in a closet that offered more than enough room to show her just how exquisite and perfect she was, and despite her not-so-passive attempt at encouraging him to do just that.

She'd clearly chosen her tactic, her strategy for battle, and how laughable it was she believed he didn't know her well enough to see it. But he could play dirty, too. He was a master at plotting, so spoke the dozens of spines bearing his name, his millions, and he could already see her skin emblazoned with his victorious ink. He'd turn it around. He'd get her to come to him. That's what he'd do, and he'd win.

Kate appeared from the bedroom moments later, dressed in a suit, minus the jacket which she carried in hand, and Rick eyed her up and down as though he were equipped with X-ray vision. "I like that better than the black," he offered in compliment of her purple poplin. "Your eyes look incredible when you wear that color. Well, even more incredible."

"Thanks," she replied as the scene of her morning shower flashed across her mind.

He continued to chop at the fruit on the counter when he asked, though he already knew the answer. "Are you still wearing it?" There was no stammer in his words that time, no falter in his surety.

She reached over and plucked a whole strawberry from the cutting board, bit deliberately at its end. "Maybe," she said as the sweetness dissolved in her mouth. "I'll see you at the precinct later?"

"You will." Kate pushed a kiss across their distance and turned to go. "Definitely," he added, and she understood exactly what he meant.

 **xxxx**

"That was hot," Rick gushed, buckling back into the cruiser later that afternoon. "That was so hot."

Kate tossed him the side-eye and revved up the car. "You know, for a man who has the resources to do anything he wants, you should get out more, Castle. You've seen me do that hundreds of times before." She pulled out into traffic en route back to the 12th, after a bust that yielded not one but two alleged-but-not-so-alleged gangbangers suspected of taking down one of her open case's victims. "Why are you so buzzed? You can barely sit still."

"I was talking about Esposito, Detective. Did you see how he had that thug almost in tears? That's definitely going in the next book." She said nothing and he bit back a smile. "Oh, and speaking of books, my editor called this morning, and as part of our wedding gift, the house on the Sound up in Westport is ours for the weekend, if we want it. Sort of a last hurrah before N-Day. I already said we'd go, but I can undo it."

"N-Day?"

"Nuptial Day, my wife-to-be. Nuptial Day. I mean, we already have everything all taken care of, so I thought it'd be nice for us to, maybe, relax for a couple of days." She hit the brake hard when the car in front of them unexpectedly did the same. "It sure seems like you could use it."

Kate promptly dug into her memory and called up the house. There was a hot tub there, and a pool table, and an elegant-yes, somehow they'd managed it-mirror along the ceiling above the bed. All tools she could add to her arsenal and wield effectively in her favor.

"I'll probably have to bring some last minute stuff with us to work on while we're there, but, yeah, we can go. We had a lot of fun the last time." Oh, had they, essentially venturing from the bedroom that weekend only to make way to the front door to collect their food deliveries. "Maybe we can actually get out to the beach this time, or outside at all."

"Yeah," Rick concurred in the midst of a reverie. There was a marble bathtub there, and a gourmet kitchen, and a theater room, all of which he was certain he could use to woo her into defeat. "Maybe we'll take the Ferrari up there. It's been a while since you drove it." He added that nugget merely as icing on the cake. She'd let slip long ago the titillation that simple entertainment yielded.

"Offering up your baby, Castle, really? Just like that? Without any grumbling? You hate it when Ryan and Espo ask you if they can drive it."

"Yeah, well, they don't kiss like you do."

She chuckled, but didn't allow him the satisfaction of hearing it. "You just want me to wear your present for you again. That's it, isn't it?"

Slowly, Rick turned his head, waited until she was able to give him her attention. "Again?" he said. "So, maybe _was_ definitely."

"Shut up," she snapped, but playfully. "Tell me when we're leaving, and then we're playing the quiet game until we get back to the precinct."

She needed to know exactly how much time she had to plan.


	3. Chapter 3

Rick had whined about his achy neck for most of that Thursday afternoon, having tweaked it when he'd tripped over his own foot chasing behind Kate earlier- to no one's surprise, that hadn't been the story he'd told-and the couple of hours between her arrival home after work and his later-scheduled return, following a dinner out with Alexis, had set Kate up beautifully.

She hadn't had the time to go all out as he once had, having a professional massage table brought into the loft and all of that, but she was ready for him, nonetheless, and the element of surprise, she imagined, having plainly brushed off the whole of his hyperbolic complaints, would undoubtedly work in her favor.

When he texted to let her know he was on his way, she quickly changed out of her sweatshirt and into something far more tantalizing. The delicate white cotton of the camisole hugged her body, left little to the imagination-certainly one of his imagination's capabilities-and that was precisely the reason she'd chosen it. Between it and the barely-there of her customary sleep shorts, she was a respectable feast of the eyes for the taking.

With candles flickering in the bathroom, and the light of just one bulb illuminating the bedroom, she waited for the turn of his key, which came but twenty minutes later. She watched from her perch on the bed as he made his way into the office, his attention buried in the screen of his phone, one hand kneading the back of his neck as he moved.

"How was dinner?" Kate asked, and he snapped his head with a wince towards the sound of her voice.

"Dinner was nice. Nicer than my damn neck," he griped. "Alexis says hi and that she'll come over for dinner or dessert next week." He stepped across the threshold into the bedroom and then stopped to take her in. "It's dark in here. What are you up to, gorgeous? Did you eat something? Did you pack for tomorrow?" He slipped out of his jacket and dropped it onto the chair beside the bookshelf.

"Just waiting for you, handsome, and, yes, I put a few things in a bag, and I had part of a salad. I wasn't very hungry."

He kicked off his shoes and came up to the end of the bed. "How about the oatmeal cookies? You know I got them especially for you."

She pushed onto her knees and crawled over to where he stood, set her fingers to work on the buttons of his shirt. "As I recall, I demonstrated my gratitude for that present, more than once. Somehow I found room for two. There are still more in there, if you want some, but you'll have to wait until after."

His senses were already on overload and he'd only just walked in, and when she accidentally-or so she wanted him to believe-grazed the skin of his chest with her fingers, his body flinched. "After?" he asked with an unintentional pre-teen squeak. _Thank God_ , a part of him thought, _not even a week and she's caved_ , and another very anxious part of him just slightly south nearly called to attention before being struck down by reality.

"A hot shower," she told him, with emphasis on the cruelest word of the three, "and when you're done, I'm going to give you the best neck rub of your life."

"You…You are?" He hadn't intended it so, but it'd come out as though she'd just threatened him with some sort of awful punishment. And, actually, in a way, it was. He peered down as her hands reached for his belt and he all but fell over backwards. "Okay, so, I'm going to, um, go in there, where the water thing is," he stammered, "and that's…Did I say thank you? I can't remember, but I'm going to…You just wait here and…" With that he disappeared around the corner and into the bathroom.

Kate collapsed onto the bed with a giggle. She couldn't imagine him lasting the night in the bet, not with how easy it'd just been to work him into that state, and she'd barely even tried. The real fun was yet to come, and as she heard the water kick on and Rick's subsequent yowl, she closed her eyes and lost herself in the daydream of all the sensations his impending concession would bring.

When he emerged a short time later, she had the bedroom doors closed and the bed draped in a blanket in wait of his body. "Take that off," she instructed him of his robe. "Lie down on your stomach." Even in the muted light of the room, she could see the dance of the muscles of his back when he let the garment fall to the floor, and she wanted to reach out and trace them with her fingertips, with her mouth.

A chill remained locked in his bones from the water, as cold as it'd necessarily been, but when she cinched her knees around him and settled at his hips, his temperature swung wildly in the opposite direction. _Don't think about it_ , he told himself again and again of the smoothness of her thighs, the artistry of her hands, but his inadvertent attention to every tiny detail only made it things worse, and when she leaned over him and gave him the weight of her body, no words in existence could've come to his aid.

"You're so stiff, Castle," Kate breathed into his ear, elicited a tingle in them both. "I know we're going away, but a weekend in bed would probably do you some good. I want to make sure you're ready for our wedding night."

She smiled and he could feel her lips, and had he been able to roll over, he would've exposed just how ready he was. "Oh, keep doing that, right there. That's so good. Please remind me to be a klutz more often."

"Is your being a klutz _more_ often even possible, Castle?"

"Very funny. Wait, go back, a little to the left. A little…Yeah. You mock, Detective, but I know my incredible physical prowess has always turned you on, even if it stumbles every now and then." He bucked his hips and sent her tumbling sideways to the mattress. "If you'd like to go ahead and wave the white flag on the bet, I'd be happy to physically prowess you right now. You look devastatingly sexy tonight, by the way. Have I told you that?"

"Yeah, right, in my tank top and shorts? Please." She tried as best she could to play down the truth of it, that she'd prudently orchestrated that very ensemble. "And you wish, Castle. When have you known me to surrender anything? Like I'd give you that satisfaction."

With his body free to move, save for the one leg she'd left hanging across his middle, Rick twisted onto his back and pulled her up again. "Once upon a rainy night," he began apropos of nothing, his palms gliding up and down her thighs, his thumbs floating dangerously close to target, "a beautiful, soaked you came knocking on my door to give yourself to me, after years of denying your desires. That was the very definition of surrender, Ms. Beckett, and I'm sure I don't have to remind you, you left me _very_ satisfied."

He'd used the memory of that night on her many times, always with successful result-success being their clothes hadn't remained on their bodies for very long-and, of course, without any objection. After all, it'd been the most passionate, the most erotic night of her life, and the mere thought of it, even at that point, two years later, still found her wickedly aroused.

"Yeah, well, that was then and this is now, and from where I'm sitting, it feels like you're the one who's ready to surrender." With the suggestion, she shifted slightly but effectively backward, her hands pressed against his chest, propping her up. "The wait can be over right now, Castle. All you have to do is say the word." And, fuck, did she ever want him to say the word.

All at once, he managed to bend upright, grabbed hold of her around the back. "And exactly which word would that be? Could be your lucky night. I'm a writer. I'm filled with words."

They smiled at one another, the proximity of their lips a torment for both.

"How about 'Please?'" Kate answered. "And if you say it over and over again, you might even enjoy the payoff a bit more. I know I would."

He relished the feel of her, the perfect pressure of her position, but he'd already given too much, and danger was close-at-hand. "How about 'Thank you for the neck rub, but I'm going to get a cookie,'" he teased and dipped her back against the pillows, before scooting from the bed, leaving her high and far from dry. "Come join me if you want some more…or need some more," he quipped, sounding most pleased with himself, his first order of business a beeline for the freezer and a handful of ice to help soothe what she'd roused.

Left alone in their bed, Kate let go a sigh of frustration. So, it seemed getting some more wasn't going to be as easy as she'd thought. But there was the weekend jaunt to Connecticut, and that was still going to be her best bet. He was already so close; she could feel it, both literally and figuratively. He just needed an extra little push. By the time Sunday was upon them, Detective Beckett was convinced she'd have her man-hopefully many, many times.


	4. Chapter 4

The drive up I-95 towards Westport wasn't one often endeavored free from the snarl of traffic, and that Friday evening was no exception, the three-wide grid of cars at a crawl nearly the entire way out of Greenwich. Kate was in control of the Ferrari, as Rick had promised-a seductive scenario he, too, relished the pleasure of-at the end of a day of growing dead ends in a case already rife with them, and her mounting frustration over the sluggish ride was plain to see, from the restless bounce of her left leg, to the white of her knuckles atop the steering wheel.

"Just one more exit and we're practically at the restaurant," he attempted to offer in solace, but, by that point, the silver in his lining bore little in the way of shine. "Hey," he kept on as she advanced them another unsatisfying four feet, "I love you, you know. And I know we have a lot going on and it's just a couple of days, but I'm glad we're doing this."

"I love you, too," Kate said, following a hiss directed at the driver in front of them. "But I swear to God, Castle, if I am not out of this car in ten minutes, you will not be seeing that bikini again. I will wear my sweats all damn weekend."

She'd shown him that bikini before she'd tucked it into her bag, and the thought of not being able to see it wrapped around her body was, for him, a fate worse than writer's block.

"I know. I'm sorry. It's just…We're almost there, I promise." He grew notably antsy in his seat, the panic in his voice at a steady increase. "There, there's Exit 17. I can see it!" he shouted with childlike glee, and she allowed him the moment of charming relief before she continued her play.

"Eight minutes, Castle. Sweats - top _and_ bottom."

"Stop, we'll make it." She wanted to throw the car into Park right there in the middle of the highway, climb over the console and devour him in his sweet desperation. "Just get into the right lane. Get over!"

Kate spent the final mile to the ramp working to keep her cruel amusement in check, and with just over four minutes to spare, she made the turn onto Saugatuck Avenue and landed them at the restaurant. Despite the comfortably air-conditioned climate of the car, tiny beads of anxious sweat had taken up residence above Rick's lip, and he exhaled a swift breath, as though he'd just managed to conquer a mountain on foot.

"Cut it pretty close there, Castle," she teased, pushing open her door. "Come on, I need a drink."

Rick watched her climb out, watched her adjust the twist of her skirt, one that had, for the better part of two hours, granted him a healthy dose of leg. "Many, many drinks," he mumbled in definitive commentary on his own charged state.

 **xxxx**

It was Rick who drove them on to the house after their dinner, the beach just a few short miles from the restaurant, Kate's wine consumption having bested his by more than a glass. She didn't routinely partake, thanks to a job that laughed at standard hours, so a generous third pour found her head in something of a swirl, and her rare indulgence appreciated by both.

He barely had their bags out of hand and a light on inside before she sidled up to him with her proposal, one he, too, had been fully-prepared to present, for mostly selfish reasons. "How about you turn on the hot tub, and I'll go slip into you-know-what? And I don't mean my sweats."

Rick bit down on the inside of his cheek to prevent the escape of the celebratory hurrah that instantly rumbled up. "A lovely idea," he replied, sounding overly tempered. "I'm sure there must be a bottle or two around here; if so, shall I bring you a glass?"

"If you want to have some, I will, too," she answered with far more than wine in her words.

When Kate disappeared with her bag, already familiar enough with the place to find her own way to the bedroom, he headed for the kitchen. In the cooler tucked beneath the counter, he found them a prime Malbec, which he knew he'd have to locate and replace, of course, but, in that moment, that mattered not. "If death-by-bikini is how you'll go Rick, ol' boy, at least you'll go in style," he told himself aloud.

The bedroom was still dark, just a small beam of light emanating from beneath the closed bathroom door, behind which Kate was still readying. The clothes she'd been wearing were left in a heap on the bed, and he freed his hands to sample the scent of her cashmere before sliding open the door to the balcony.

With the surge of the jets' bubbles, he missed her approach, and when he turned back for inside, there she stood. "Fuck," he blurted without intention, a crass reaction inspired by both surprise and a deluge of awe. "Beckett, you scared me." His heart, his mind, they both thumped like a bass drum.

She held both glasses in hand, and had she not he surely would've come for her with the speed of a blink. A vision in evergreen was what she was, and not much of it at that, the strings holding the triangles of fabric together most benevolent in their tenuous existence. "So? Do you like it?" she asked coyly, though his stare had already given him away.

It honestly could've been the most foolish question he'd ever been asked, and for what already felt like the hundredth time, he journeyed her head to toe. "I, Richard Castle, am nothing if not a gentleman, so I'm going to ask you this, first. Would you rather hear the pure or the impure answer, because I've had just enough alcohol tonight to still have access to both?"

Kate reached out in offer. "Then you'd better catch up, Richard." When he relieved her of his share, she moved around him, granting him the completeness of view, and climbed into the water. "Go change your clothes and get in here with me," she said, but when he went for the door, her voice abruptly stopped him in his tracks. "Bring the second answer with you when you come back."

Even with the clouds floating in her head, she knew she was playing with fire, not because she was convinced as she sat there that Rick would return and relent to his body's obvious craving, but because she was suddenly less so that she wouldn't relent to her own.

What she'd gotten herself in the middle of, the bet and its constraints, was absurd, akin to self-punishment and nothing more. Aside from the time she'd spent away from him working in DC, she hadn't gone much more than a few days, let alone two weeks, without the ecstasy that welcoming him into her body provoked, and with the first not yet behind them, she found herself minutes, if not seconds, away from gladly accepting defeat.

That was until…

"By the way, I forgot to tell you earlier. I think I decided on your tattoo, today," he said as he emerged from the bedroom, "and I can't wait to see the look on your face when I get to tell you what it is." Over the side of the tub he stepped, and he parked himself on the bench across from her. "Your astonishingly beautiful face."

His tag took a bit of the sting away-she both loved and loathed that knew how to use words expertly-but his assuredness, a week ago a turn-on, now, it seemed, only served to prop up her defiance, to inject her with a surge of fresh resolve.

"Yeah, well, you're going to have plenty of time to think when you're sitting at home at night twiddling your thumbs for the next six months, Castle," she shot back, taking a gulp of the red. "You know what my face is going to look like then?" she asked and proceeded to stick out her tongue at him.

"Put that thing away unless you plan on coming over here and doing something with it. Which, by the way, I know is exactly what you've been dying to do."

Kate began to look around then, for what he didn't know. "What is it? Did you lose something? I mean besides your willpower?"

"I was just trying to find the temperature on this thing. Clearly the heat has fried your brain. Do you honestly think I can't make it two weeks without that thing, Castle?" _You're so full of shit, Kate Beckett. You'd screw him silly from now until the minute you walk down the aisle, if you could._ She did her best to shake off her taunting brain. "Have you forgotten I already made it four years?"

Wait. Shit.

Rick's lips curled as if moving in slow-motion, his eyes slivered. How delicious a moment he was living. Never had she confessed it. Never had she admitted the extent of her want of him, and it was like a symphony to his ears. But, rather than play the revelation as she might expect, he elected to go left instead of right, to go with rather than against, because in that route, on that night, he perceived the very real possibility for triumph.

He set his wine up on the edge of the tub and submerged both of his arms, scooted down on the seat until only his head was above the waterline, his feet outstretched and propped up beside her. "You know, before we became partners-in every sense of the word, I mean-whenever I wrote about Heat and Rook together, I imagined it was you and me. Since that very first night in _Heat Wave,_ with the tequila and the candles, all of it, for me, that was us." His tone was dulcet, purposefully, and he could see the response it triggered. "Did you ever think about us when you read them?"

"Yes," Kate said as his ankle inadvertently brushed against her thigh, and the amount of honesty coursing through that one word made him feel as though she'd kicked off a tidal wave in his direction.

"God, do you have any idea how sexy that is? To hear you say that? I mean, fuck, Kate, if you only knew the things I'd dreamt up for the two of them that never made it into any book, I'm not sure you'd ever be able to look at me again without blushing. I know we've done some things together, but…"

She reached down, took hold of his right calf, and pulled it across her body, so she was nestled between his legs. "Like what? Tell me something you think would make me blush." Between the additional wine and the steam from the water, she was humming, and though her slip of the tongue, however true, had been just that, Rick had bitten, hook, line and sinker, and she was off and running with it.

"Are you sure you can handle it? You can't have your way with me afterwards, remember."

"Castle," she nipped.

"Right, so, there was this one day, earlier on in our crime-fighting duo days, when you and I rode in an elevator together to talk to someone about something, and I remember all I could think about the whole trip up and down, so to speak, was sitting you up on the railing, without saying a word, kneeling in front of you, and letting my tongue taste you for the first time."

Instantly, she felt a pronounced blush, though nowhere it could be seen, and somehow she managed to pick up her glass and drink from it despite an unsteady hand. "I liked the actual first time, your real first taste," she said, "but the loft does have an elevator, Castle, if the thought ever crosses your mind again."

"You are aware my memory is still fully intact, right? You know I'll never forget you said that."

Kate stood up without warning, froth from the bubbles trickling over her breasts and down her belly as she backed out of the tub. By his side, she leaned in for his ear. "And if you could feel how wet you just made me, you'd understand why I never want you to forget. I'm going inside."

Rick seemed to lose all sensation in his legs, flailing awkwardly in the water until he was able to grab her wrist and steady himself. _You had her. But you had her_. "Wait. Why? You can't leave," he pleaded, "not…"

"Why can't I leave, Castle? Is there something you'd like me to help you with?" The grin in her voice was vicious. "A towel? Or conceding a bet gracefully, maybe?" she asked, tracing the curve of his lobe with her fingertip.

"Good one. I never knew you were such a dreamer, Detective. Go ahead, I'll be in in a minute," he huffed, and his body promptly mocked him. _Yeah, good luck walking like that_. The only damn place he wanted to be was in, but it now seemed he wouldn't be, not on that night.


	5. Chapter 5

Curled up on her side, Kate woke with the sunrise, reminded, painfully so, that the bedroom's wall of glass which overlooked the Long Island Sound was both a work of art and an infernal nuisance. Rick's left arm hung over her hip, his right hand burrowed between the muscles of her thighs, and despite her aggravation at being witness to the all too early hour of that Saturday morning, her recognition that in just one week she'd be exchanging wedding vows with the person she'd come to love more than all others brought with it a salving calm.

"Why are you awake?" His muscles hadn't shifted an inch, nor had hers, so she couldn't help but wonder how he knew. "I know you. I know your body. I can feel you thinking," he followed, absent any prodding. "Thinking…about the elevator?"

She could practically hear the waggle of his brow. "No, I wasn't thinking about the elevator." She had drifted to sleep the previous night to visions of that juicy morsel, however. "Do you realize where we'll be a week from today?"

"I do," he quipped, a bit of matrimonial humor. "You'll be making my dream come true."

Her fingers found his atop the sheets, weaved their way between. "Mine, too. So, what's the plan for today? Since we're up, should we go for a sunrise walk on the beach?"

"I bet what you want me to do is slide my fingers about six inches up the inside of your leg and let them play," he whispered against the wisps of hair at her neck, and the resulting twitch of his suggestion dropped her eyelids shut.

"This projecting of yours really seems like it's becoming a problem, Castle. I can give you Dr. Burke's number, if you want."

Rick rolled slowly free of her, stretched his limbs with a grunt. "My problem? What about you and your denial?" Kate just snickered. "Fine, go put some clothes on and we'll walk. After that, we'll run over to the store to pick up a few things, and you can make us some breakfast."

When she sat up, the band tumbled out of her hair and set it free. "Gee, can I please?"

"I told you I was going to make us dinner. It's only fair," he said reaching over to tickle the ends of her loose waves. "Dessert we can make together-something sweet."

 _Victory's sweet_ , she thought with a glance at the mirror on the ceiling, and that was just what she'd be having.

 **xxxx**

"It's your break, Castle. Whoever wins this game gets to pick the movie."

Rick had prepared their dinner and left it to simmer on the stove, the pool table their chosen entertainment until it was ready to eat. They'd spent most of the day under the sun at the beach, the late-spring shore busy with townsfolk out enjoying nature's gifts, reviewing final details for the wedding and making sure everything was in place.

"I'm in the mood for a comedy, I think." He leaned over the table and took aim with his cue, as Kate waited for the perfect moment to strike, and just as he began the slide between his fingers, she fired and hit square.

"Ever do it on a pool table, Castle?" The diagonal zag of pink chalk he left on the felt with his slip had her grinning from ear to ear. "Huh, no balls at all."

"Just for that, I'm picking _Showgirls,"_ he said and struck hard with his second attempt, sinking two solids. "And, no, I haven't, in case you were actually curious." He came around to her side to line up his next move, which he missed, giving her the table. "Have you?"

Kate hushed him in concentration and knocked four stripes away in no time flat. "Well, I've done it in a pool, and you know I've done it on a table, don't you, Castle?" In her saunter by, she nudged him with her hip and set him off balance. "Does that get me partial credit?" Her fifth effort was an unintentional gift to his game, sending the two-ball into the corner pocket.

"So, _Showgirls_ will be like a trip down memory lane for you then." There was a hint of something in his tone, something he tried to stifle but couldn't, something she picked up on instantly. "Who was this pool stud of yours?" The next ball he took aim at he nearly launched off the table. "God, please don't tell me it was that motorcycle meathead."

"Okay," she poked at him simply, and she watched his jaw clench. Abandoning his cue against the wall, he walked away in a snit. "Hey, where are you going? I'm not done with you yet." She took off after him, her stick still in hand. "Castle, come on."

"I need to check on dinner," he grumbled without looking back.

Just as he reached the kitchen, she grabbed a handful of his t-shirt and he stopped. "Look at me, Castle." He did, but begrudgingly. "I was just playing with you. It wasn't Josh. It happened a long time ago, before either of you."

Somehow, that helped to ease the burn. "Yeah?"

"Yeah, and it wasn't anything near that scene in _Showgirls_ , which, if I remember the movie correctly, is a good thing." Over his shoulder, she could hear the contents of the pot gurgling. "Go check your soup. We can finish the game later, or we can just compromise and watch _When Harry Met Sally,_ again."

Rick went for the stove and lifted the lid. "You mean the movie where the woman pretends she and the guy are just friends but she's really secretly in love with him? You would want to watch that one again." He stirred it a few times and sampled his creation. "I think we're ready to go here."

"Shut up and hand me a bowl, Castle," she replied with a roll of her eyes.

"And I still have a scar from that table, you know. That splinter was like a two-by-four."

Kate pushed herself up onto the concrete countertop. "Is this you complaining, because I believe your only moan at the time was that you couldn't do me all night on top of it?" She took the bowl and held it while he doled out a serving.

"Excuse me, but I can hardly imagine I'd ever use such an inelegant phrase to describe what it was I did to you that night. I'm an accomplished writer, Beckett, a master of language. Besides, you're the moaner, not me. And I know how much you love evidence, so if you'd like me to provide some to back that up, I'd be happy to oblige. You'll need to put down that hot soup first, though."

"The only thing I'm putting down, Castle, is that cheesy and, quite frankly, amateurish attempt to get me to give up on the bet. Thanks for the offer, but I'm hungry, and I already have everything I need to get through the rest of this weekend without your...help."

"What everything? What's that supposed to mean?"

She smiled around a spoonful. He'd understand soon enough.

 **xxxx**

"Hey, come and check this. Make sure the water's not too hot for you," Rick called out from the bathroom, where he sat perched along the edge of the half-filled marble tub. When they'd finished dinner, he'd suggested she soak in a bath while he tidied everything downstairs, and she'd agreed, but only if he'd promised to join her once he was done.

In the bedroom, Kate pulled a tank top from her bag and set it out on the bed, purposely neglecting any requirement of her lower half, and underneath it, she left her secret weapon, one very different from anything she ever used on the job, but one still mighty in its power. It was in that hidden treasure, one they both shared a revered history with, that, for her, the night and the bet would be won, and soon, with her help, he'd find it.

Not that she hadn't tried admirably up until that point to secure Rick's defeat, but when he'd put his hands on her at the beach earlier that day, glided them across her skin for the first time in too many days-yes, the application of sunscreen was a wholly innocent task under most circumstances, she was aware-her wait had come to an urgent and necessary end. She could not let pass one more night without having him.

Undressed to her bra and panties-a purposely coordinated burgundy lace set-and with her hair pulled up away from her face, Kate appeared at his call, and in the subtle flicker of his eyes, she saw him unravel. "I know you like it when they match," she said as she dipped her fingers below the water's surface. "It's perfect, thank you."

Oh, everything was perfect from where he sat. Everything except the self-imposed shackles he'd cinched around his wrists and every other part of his body. "I like that you know that." He captured her wrist before she was able to go, and he allowed a prompted fantasy to secretly play as he surveyed her bare skin. "I told you I knew what I wanted, but I don't know where I want it, yet."

Kate knew precisely what he was alluding to. "That is never going to happen," she assured him as well as herself, and with one tiny tug, she was so close, she could feel the warmth of his breath. "Do you want to help me with the rest?" Before he even knew she'd reached for the clasp, her bra spilled down the length of her arm and settled around his.

Rick relinquished his hold, let the top fall to the floor, and then his fingers began a methodical crawl upward until they came to a stop at the edge of the fabric that remained. But rather than consent to her request, he instead used her hips as leverage to help pull his body up.

"I left a mess downstairs." He slid a single digit around to her middle and flicked the decorative bow there. "Get in. I'll be back."

Kate submerged herself when he left, the faucet still spilling into the tub, and it took every ounce of what remained of her self-control not to begin the end without him. Every look between them had become a dare, every word loaded with suggestion, yet neither had broken, and to say the tension had come to a head would've been one of the greatest understatements the world had ever heard.

He'd already emptied it twice while he righted the kitchen, and Rick downed another hit of scotch from his glass before he finally crossed back over the bathroom's threshold, the bourbon he'd poured for her secured in his other hand.

It was all just tearing him down. No matter how much he pretended otherwise, every time he was near her, he wanted to have her. And where was the newsflash in that? That's the way it'd been for him since day one. Realistically, there was no way in hell he would ever make it through any week ever again, let alone the week before their wedding, without the satiety, the relief, only her body could bring.

"What's that?" she asked as he took a position on the floor beside the tub, let his arm spill over into the water.

"For you. Bourbon." He set the glass next to her and she twirled a lazy finger around its rim. "How does it feel? Are you relaxed?"

 _Not for fucking days_ , scoffed her brain. "You were gone for a while," she said, sidestepping his foolish question. "This was the least you could do," she teased after a taste. "Thanks."

"Sorry, I lost track of time in a bottle of Glenlivet because I couldn't stop thinking about you in this bathtub. And on the beach, and in bed, and in the car..." With that, he cleared his glass once more. "You're…Fuck, I don't even have words for what you are, for what you do to me. You're like this, this personification of the unimaginable. Like everything I never asked for because I thought it couldn't possibly exist."

Kate drew her leg up out of the water and set it to rest against his arm. "Castle, are you drunk?" she asked only half-kidding.

"Of course you have no idea what I'm babbling about. Of course, because you're you and I'm just me," he said. "And I think this is probably an instance where I need more booze, not less."

"What's that supposed to mean? 'Just me?' You think I don't know what it's like to be overwhelmed by the power of someone, Castle? By you, by the effect you have?" Beneath the water, her leg nudged his dangling fingers. "Hey, look at me. Do you think I ever imagined someone like you would happen to me? You're the best thing I never saw coming, Castle, and having your love and being able to love you astounds me every day."

"Okay, I guess I am sort of a catch," he replied in jest, and she doused him with a healthy spray of bathwater. "Hey, watch it. Them's fightin' words."

"You promised you were going to get in here with me, and you still have all your clothes on. I won't marry a man who can't keep his promises." He bounced up at once and quickly peeled off his shirt. When he went for the button on his shorts, she halted him. "Wait, hang on, Castle. Can you go grab my top and panties, first? I left them in there on the bed."

He wouldn't find the panties she hadn't left, of course, but he would find just what she had left for him-and for herself-and that meant the game would soon be over.


	6. Chapter 6

Kate reclined against the angle of the tub, settled into the hot water with bated breath, her work at bringing to a triumphant conclusion what had essentially become arousal warfare all but complete. It'd been several minutes since she'd sent Rick into the bedroom to unknowingly retrieve the tool of his undoing, and she still hadn't heard a peep out of him.

"Castle, are you coming?" she called out with deliberately chosen word. "The water's going to get cold." Thankfully, she imagined he'd now be quite the opposite, and in that reverie, she found herself very much the same.

He was still standing there by the bed, as if rooted almost, and he wasn't sure how long he'd stared at it before he'd finally picked it up, but there it was in his hand, his mind running a fast and furious race. The two had met many times before, were intimately acquainted, and he understood well its purpose, but that didn't stop the throb of envy over what it had the power to give her on that night because of what he couldn't.

"Is this what you meant? Is this the "everything you need" to make it through the weekend?" Kate had closed her eyes, didn't see him come in, and her mouth opened, but nothing came out. "Beckett…" Still in his shorts and without a shirt, he dropped to the floor at her side, propped himself up against the tub's rim. "What are you doing to me?" he asked, sounding positively anguished.

"You are drunk, aren't you? And I can't do anything to you, Castle, remember? At least not the things I want to do." Her eyes drifted to the purple gadget in his hand and then back to him. "That is all I have. Well, and a few other things, but you already know that. You've seen the box."

Rick's brow arched with the nostalgia. The contents of _that_ box had been the source of many hours of shared pleasure. "What if…What if we elope, right now? We're still close enough to the city. There must still be flights out to Vegas tonight. Then I can-"

"What if I want you to watch?" Kate cut in, slinking towards him like a lioness stalking her prey, and with his expression, she knew she'd pressed the perfect button.

They'd played together at such tantalizing games before, usually as merely an appetizer because the charge it stirred was too electric to keep leashed for long, but the proposition had never come in such naked form, and he was left woozy.

Just last night, he'd believed the bikini might've been his death, and he almost had to laugh, because compared to what'd just been propositioned-albeit a gift wrapped in the cruelest of packages-that suddenly seemed like a stroll in the park.

"If I cried like a baby right now, would you still love me?"

Kate stifled a giggle. "Maybe more than I already do."

"Good to know. Okay, well, if a drive-thru wedding is out of the question, I suppose I'll just have to give the lady what she wishes."

She picked up her glass of bourbon and swallowed down the finger that remained. "You should keep those words handy, Castle. I like the way they sound when you say them. Now, are you going to get in here or not?"

Rick stood and stepped out of the clothes he still had on, climbed into the opposite end of the tub. "I am a man of my word. Besides, I know how much you enjoy foreplay." It'd been an entire week of foreplay, but she offered no waggish retort, primarily because the sight of his naked body found her too distracted to devise one with effective haste. "I'll leave this up here for now," he said of the tormenting device as he lowered himself into the water, and she cracked a smile.

"Hey, can I ask you something?" she said after they managed to situate their limbs.

"Yes, I was entirely serious about eloping. Another bonus to having a writer as a husband, he can handle all the apology cards."

Her fingers curled around his ankles. "Where was this guy a few months ago, Mr. Four Hundred Wedding Guests? He could've freed up a lot of my weekends. And, shush, that wasn't my question."

"I'm sorry, on both accounts. Interrogate away, Detective."

"Castle, did you think we'd actually make it here, from that first night to this wedding?"

He let his hands glide lazily over the muscles of her calves. "I can tell you I always loved you enough to want to, but I suppose I'd be lying if I said I was always sure we would. I mean, we've had a lot of shit thrown our way, you and me. Our life together has basically been a fiction writer's wet dream."

Kate nudged him with her toes. "You're such a romantic, Castle."

"Hey, there was love stuff in there. There's always been love stuff," he protested. "Even for you, don't try to deny it. You already admitted you wanted me for four years." It all flowed out in one swift breath so she didn't have opportunity to jump in.

"Yeah, yeah," she grumbled as her gaze landed on her toy. "I want to get out now, Castle."

"Of the marriage or the bath?" he teased. "Kidding-hopefully." He'd spotted her shift of focus, but didn't break from his part. "And, why? I just got in."

Without offering his gripe any acknowledgement, she wrapped a towel around her middle and stepped out of the tub, plucked the vibrator from its edge. "Five minutes." That was all she said before she walked out.

 **xxxx**

Kate's body was bare as she stood at the side of the bed, her hand working to smooth the remaining swirls of moisturizer across the skin of her shoulder. There was a brief time Rick watched her from the doorway, and though he never announced his presence, he sensed she felt him there-in her movements, in her deliberateness, in her painstaking care. It was all a performance, for him, one intended to culminate in a state of ecstasy to which he was to have no hand in transporting her, but that, he knew, would not be so.

He came for her, quietly, and she allowed him that without hindrance. His lips brushed her neck and left a whisper, but she remained still. It was there where she'd first left it, in sight of both, now set beside the top she would never don, and with a sneer he discharged it, its presumed contribution no longer required.

His hand grazed the small of her back, slid around the curve of her hip, and she met it, clutching it as she reached down to the bed. "Don't," he told her, and she acquiesced.

"Castle," she uttered, almost a plea. "I thought you wanted-"

"Turn around," he charged at her ear, and without distance between their bodies, she could feel how hard he'd become.

A smile tugged at Kate's lips, and she rebuked herself for it because surely he'd know. When she finally spun, his mouth was there for her taking, so close, but she couldn't, not yet, and it ached.

"What?" she asked when his eyes said something his mouth hadn't yet managed to. Still dewy from the bath, his skin, the droplets trickling down his chest, entranced her. She wanted to capture them with her tongue, taste what they'd collected of him along their paths. "Castle, what?" God, the words were there. She could hear them. Their syllables practically hummed in her ears.

Rick dipped around her suddenly, sent everything flying off the bed with a swoosh of his arm. "There is no way that fucking thing gets to have you tonight when I can't."

The possessiveness in his voice was unlike any he'd ever shown her, and her wonder in its display was profound, not because she didn't believe it could exist inside of him, but because of her own instantaneous reaction. She hadn't ever imagined she'd find such a virile demonstration so intoxicating.

He reached up and freed her hair from its clip, and she could hear the thump of her heart as it quickened, but then something happened. In a flash, everything seemed to freeze, to go silent. She looked around her. He was still there. They were still there, but something had decidedly changed.

As though trapped in a dream, Kate tried to blink out of it, to set the room back in motion, but to no effect, and the look on Rick's face only served to confuse her even more, because she had no idea where the hell it'd come from.

"Castle, why are you smiling like that?"

Rick tapped a finger against his lips, parked himself in a dramatic pause, feigning some sort of consideration. "Hmm, I wonder how soon I can get you an appointment."

He might as well have been speaking Chinese for all she understood, and her disorientation was quickly joined by irritation. "What the hell are you talking about, Castle? An appointment for what?"

"I'm talking about claiming my victory prize, of course. I'm definitely a man of many talents, as you know, but the art of the tattoo isn't one of them, I'm afraid."

"Honestly, how much scotch did you have downstairs? There's nothing for you to claim. You haven't won anything."

The grin was back, but now it was brimming with smugness.

"Oh, but I have, Detective. You just asked me to do something very naughty to your body. And then there's the matter of…" He glanced coolly downward, and there it was, Kate's hand wrapped around him.

 _What did you do?_ her brain screamed, but she had absolutely no answer for it. "But, I…How…?" He could've knocked her over with a feather.

"I didn't put it there," he said. "And I can't say as I've ever tried what you asked, so I'm not entirely sure how, but-"

"Shup up, Castle," she hissed.

"You're right. I'm going to need my mouth for this."

Kate looked down again and she still hadn't released him, which she immediately rectified. She couldn't understand any of it. What about her secret weapon? What about his claim of her? She had him. He was hers. The bet was hers.

Rick reached out and took her by the waist, backed her up a step until her legs came into contact with the mattress and she couldn't help but sit. Now it was staring her in the face, and she eyed it fixedly, that which she, apparently, had no longer been able to deprive herself of, that which gave her what nothing else could give her, and from her captivation came curiosity.

"What did I ask you to do?"

The time it'd taken for her to travel from emotion A to emotion B could've been clocked with a few ticks of a stopwatch.

He leaned in, dropped his hands to the mattress at her sides, and whispered the answer in her ear.

She bit at her lip with the flush sparked by the seductive words that tumbled from his mouth, words she still had no recollection of formulating or voicing. "If you can do that, Castle, I'll buy you any damn game you want to play," she told him before her legs came up around his and pulled him down onto the bed.

 **xxxx**

It was hours later, after one vigorous make-up-for-lost-time session and another had sandwiched a nap, and their bodies lay entwined before the bedroom's wall of glass and the moon's voyeuristic eye. Despite just six days without, it'd felt inexplicably new, what'd come when talk had ended, and the excitement born of that had elevated every touch, every sensation to a height that'd left them both in a state of utter drunkenness.

"If I'd known it was going to be like that, I would've suggested we take a break from sex more often," Rick said, still seeking calm breath.

Kate drew a hand across the middle of his chest and yanked at the patch of hair there, eliciting a howl. "Don't even fucking joke. There will be no more breaks, do you hear me? Your soon-to-be wife has spoken."

"More like ordered," he muttered as he attempted to rub away the sting. "You're lucky I find your bossiness incredibly hot. You should feel free to take charge like that whenever the inspiration strikes you."

Her leg slid up over his until it came to rest at his hip. "You know what's funny, Castle? That you actually think I'm not always in charge."

"Okay, maybe we just get back to the part where I kicked your ass in this little bet of ours. You really gave it a hell of a fight, though. I almost didn't make it past the Wonder Woman thing."

"You almost didn't make it past a lot of the things, Castle. But, in the spirit of sportsmanship, I will admit that I almost didn't, either."

That perked him up and onto his side, and she adjusted with his new position. "Come on, you can admit it now. Tell me the whole elevator thing really got to you."

Kate smiled and pecked his arm. "When I told you how wet that made me, you can't even imagine. Did you really think about that back then or was that just something you came up with on the spot?"

"Detective, I assure you I have wanted to have you since the very beginning, and in all manner of ways. My need for you is what grew."

She nudged him flat onto his back and pushed up on top of him. "You know how much I need you, too, don't you," she affirmed more than asked. "I know what I said, and it was stupid for me to deny it, but it's not an easy thing for me, Castle."

Rick pulled her in for a kiss, one that required neither say anything more.

"So, it's your turn. You tell me what this brilliant tattoo idea you've come up with is," she said as she began a slow crawl down his body to start them off once more.

"A PlayStation controller," he said plainly.

Kate's head popped up like a jack-in-the-box. "What? Castle, you can't be serious. You said it was going to be beautiful and elegant."

"Well, it will be when I ask the guy to write the word _always_ inside of it."

She rolled her eyes in the darkness. "Wanna bet?" she snarled.

 **XXX**


End file.
